I wanted to add a point here.
bert.miller@unisys.com wrote:

Chris Szeto wrote:

I'm not the author, but I believe I can answer some.

I didn't require answers; I'm just giving feedback that the author(s)
can use as they see fit.

bert.miller@unisys.com wrote:

I still think your better legal solution is just to have Ukyou marry
Nabiki on paper, using the notion that Ukyou is legally male.

You forget that Ukyou was honorbound to marry a Saotome not a
Tendo.

Authors have the discretion to eliminate this barrier, using a variety
of methods.  IMO, Ukyou would go along with the most pragmatic approach
Nabiki can come up with, given that Ukyou now IS married to Ranma in
the most important sense.  Ukyou's family remains a concern, but there
are a variety of approaches one can take (and fanfic authors are all
over the map on these):

1)  Ukyou's family doesn't care anymore (the DNU approach, more or less).
  Ukyou is the only person carrying the Kuonji family honor torch.
  An occasional variant of this is that her family is dead.

2)  Ukyou's family does care, but will dispense with the dishonor in the
  easiest way offered, such as the Tendos or Saotomes offering to take
  Ukyou off their hands, possibly via adoption.  (In other words, Ukyou
  herself is the dishonor, or a reminder of it.)  David Eddy used this
  in "Nekophobia"; I copied him, with a twist, in "Much Ado About Ranma".

The approach you seem to think mandatory (Ukyou's family is die-hard
on the dishonor, and either Ukyou marries Ranma [NOT just any Saotome], or
there will be steep reparations, such as lots of money or Genma's seppuku)
is not mandatory.  To the author, everything is mutable.

Ah, the old It is HIS fic, let him write it approach? Works. (Kinda like the
"Time" for Ranma 1/2... THE only hard date that appears (From what I have been
told...) is one ref. to 93... so IF an author wishes to set it Here and Now... he
can, ne?

Reminder:  given how common abortion is in Japan, you have to justify
Akane, Ukyou, and Nabiki NOT having them done (if that's your intent).

I can not imagine Akane hurting an anyone she knows is innocent.  Ukyou
has that extra link to Ranma.  Nabiki is the only one the author would need
to justify.

Well, Nabiki IS the one I primarily had in mind.  IMO, it is OOC for Nabiki
to carry to term w/o extra justification such as yet-to-be-disclosed
Amazon laws.  With Akane and Ukyou, either decision can be considered IC,
but at the very least, Nodoka or Soun or someone will express concern to
them about what carriage to term will do to their schooling.  Again, IMO,
the story needs this discussion regardless of what Akane and Ukyou decide
("justification" meaning, in their case, possibly just this discussion,
but I don't feel the author(s) are being honest with the reader if they
ignore the issue altogether).

Also, Ukyou is as well noted for her pragmatism as for her desire for Ranma.

Finally, Akane's attitude is NOT identical with what a typical American
girl in the same shoes would feel.  She almost certainly thinks about
abortion as a Mahayana Buddhist, not as a Christian/Jew/Muslim:  the soul
of the unborn just heads for the next life a bit earlier (Shinto not
having a great deal to say on this subject).  Japanese society has
orchestrated ways for the parents of aborted fetuses to express their
grief.

>From what I can recall about that from time spent over there (It has been a
while, plus I never really cared, as it was academic to me, anyways...) the soul
of the child DOESN'T "enter" the body until forty days AFTER birth... (I could be
wrong there, and it has been a while since I checked or cared...)  So abortion
isn't really a bad thing, as it is over in the US (I WON'T go into the old
arguement.)

the technique.  It surprised me a bit that Kasumi would remember such
violent techniques when Nabiki doesn't (though I liked the idea of Kasumi
suddenly delivering that kick to Ranma).  I'd also hoped to see
Nabiki use strategy to better effect than she did.

Kasumi has an additional two years of martial arts over Nabiki assuming the
fact that Soun taught them when they were young before his wife died.

Most fanfic authors seem to assume that Kasumi and Nabiki dropped out at
their own wish, not because Soun stopped teaching them when Mrs. Tendo
died.  This assumption is interesting, but raises its own problems:  given
that Akane was quite young, how/why did she continue?

Is there any information that Kasumi or Nabiki ever studied the Art?  And If so
why did they quit? (And since there seems to be no HARD date ref. to the Death of
Mother Tendo... She could have died when Akane was 10 or so... and by that time
(esp if she started training around 5) she would be very good... and might have a
reason to conitune... and the others might have quit for thier own reasons
(Kasumi, a hard stylist? and that is Anything Goes...)

And one more item I forgot in my first posting:

Kasumi sighed and continued.  "Mousse served us all a large helping
of a dish called spaghetti.

Nodoka, being urban Japanese, is well aware of what spaghetti is.
Standard Italian fare is easily available everywhere in Tokyo.
I mention this because it is similar to a pet peeve of mine from Addicted
part 1 (which I've passed on to Gregg Sharp, but he shrugged, saying the
story's not his any more) where the line

Shampoo had no idea about this "spaghetti" stuff, but it seemed okay.

occurs.  Actually, Shampoo should be wondering about the funny red
sauce on the Lo Mein.  (Lo Mein being the dish Marco Polo took to Italy to
obtain spaghetti.)